Individuality Without Isolation

Coworking continues growing in popularity, and demonstrates it’s “darlingness” in the press this past week with some great national coverage! Coworking hit the big time in the Wall Street Journal as well as on NPR this week, featuring several spaces throughout the country. Check out some of these excerpts and click on the links for full articles:

For those who lack a conventional office, shared, or “coworking,” spaces promise to solve some of the dilemmas of working alone. These facilities provide environments where professional nomads can work in relative quiet and even socialize around the coffee pot, or copier.

…Both coworking spaces we tried in the techie Northwest were bigger. Seattle’s Office Nomads, located in youthful and artistic Capitol Hill, can accommodate several dozen workers with its mix of closed-door offices, open desks and lounge areas. Office Nomads didn’t require a reservation and won’t charge for the first visit. Office Nomads was well-lit, with abundant plugs and desk options.

Coworkers—as well as the site’s founders—introduced themselves and offered help. We weren’t sure if we visited on a particularly friendly day or if this was the norm. Office Nomads appeared to place an emphasis on creating a community for its members; there was a “State of the Nomads” monthly meeting at midday. A bulletin board listed in-house social options as well as visiting speakers slated to appear, and also featured quirky photos and fun facts about members. Office Nomads also offered the most extensive weekday hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

New Work City is part of a trend that started a handful of years ago on the West Coast. Newly mobile tech workers with laptops liked their freedom but still missed the human interaction they got from going to an office. So they formed meet-up groups: casual, once-a-week deals at different locations — sometimes even people’s living rooms. Today, Bacigalupo says more and more people are working independently — either by choice, a layoff or both.

“The same way that [during] the last century work shifted from blue collar to white collar,” Bacigalupo says, “I think we’ll be seeing in this century, we’re going to be moving away from the idea of a centralized Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 workplace, and we’ll be moving much more in this direction. People will work when they want where they want.”

All in all, quite a week for coworking. As usual, if you’ve been meaning to get yourself out to a coworking space but somehow haven’t managed to, there has never been a better time than the present. Make yourself a 2010 resolution to get more work done and have a better time doing it and get out to your local coworking space. Find the one near you at the Coworking Wiki.

I’ve probably said this here before, but when it rains, it pours coworking and Office Nomads coverage. This week already there are three articles on coworking in the blogosphere, and it’s only Tuesday!

over at TriangleB2B.com. It’s a long-ish piece that explores the origins, reasons and mechanics of coworking (though it does use the hyphen). It’s by far the best piece on coworking that I’ve seen yet and well worth the read if you’re new to the concept or if you’re well versed in coworking but still sometimes getting the “blank stare” when you explain it. This piece will give you plenty of good, clear language that helps entreprenuers see the value in coworking.

The venerable Web Worker Daily posted another piece on coworking, this time focusing on the history of their coworking coverage. It’s a handy guide to stories describing coworking in general, covering unique business models in coworking and even one on some exotic coworking locales. Read up and join the ongoing discussion there. It’s lively and informative.

Finally, slightly West of us, Jennifer Hargrove at The Kitsap Sun (yes, an actual print newspaper) caught wind of the coworking movement. They published a short piece about coworking and used Office Nomads as the example. Thanks for the kind words and the shout out about the Pink Slip Special!